GayPatriot

The Internet home for American gay conservatives.

Islam: The Thinking Person’s Dilemma

by

You could write about how hard it is to come to an opinion on Islam, and whether Islam itself is responsible for the terror committed in its name. Or, is it true what the politicians say, and Islam itself is a “religion of peace” hijacked by radicals. I am going to try to jam a lot of thoughts into a post without making it TLDR, and hopefully provoke some contentious, internets-worthy debate.

It’s easy to take a knee-jerk position on Islam and terror. The knee-jerk progressive left tree hugger special snowflake position is that “Islam has nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism, and to think so is racist against millions of Islamics who haven’t directly committed an act of terror.” Because, you know, no one knows better than secular Western leftists what the True Spirit of Islam is.

It’s easy to want to believe this take, because Gen X and each succeeding generation have been indoctrinated in multiculturalism and taught that, literally, the worst sin a person could commit is being a racist, worse than murder or rape, or even child-rape. Roman Polanski raped a 13 year old girl, Victor Salva raped an 11 year old boy and both are respected in the show business world. Paula Deen used a racial slur 25 years ago and her show business career is over. So, being racist carries more social stigma than child rape and it’s pretty easy to just go along with the notion that it’s unfair to try and think there’s something wrong with Islam. But on the other hand, we confront the nagging reality that Buddhists, Hindus, Taoists, and Presbyterians aren’t blowing up people every day in the name of religion.

And we *want* to believe that Islam is a religion of peace, not just because of the indoctrination we’ve been getting since childhood, but because it offends the rational part of our brain to write off an entire culture of people. The rational part of our brain also recognizes that however many Mohammedans there are in the world, it’s obvious that a vast majority of them are not committing terrorist acts. We can accept the idea that it’s just a fringe group of whackjobs. (Granted, even if that fringe is only 10% of Muslims, that’s still over 100M people we have to worry about. That’s a problem.)

It’s not like there aren’t other faiths that have a problem with whackjobs. When a Christian goes nuts, it looks like this. When a Jew goes nuts, it looks like this. But when a Muslim goes nuts… it too often looks like this.

One of these things is just not like the freakin’ others. And when is the last time Christians or Jews or Buddhists or Sikhs or Taoists or anybody slaughtered a bunch of innocent people because they were offended by some cartoons in a magazine? It is true that people have engaged in terrorism under the color of Christianity, the most recent example was the prolonged terror campaign by Irish Catholics in Northern Ireland. The leader of the Roman Catholic church stood up and condemned the violence.

“Violence is a lie, for it goes against the truth of our faith, the truth of our humanity, the life, the freedom of human beings. Violence is a crime against humanity, for it destroys the very fabric of society … On my knees I beg you to turn away from the paths of violence and to return to the ways of peace… Let history record that at a difficult moment in the experience of the people of Ireland, the Bishop of Rome set foot in your land, that he was with you and prayed with you for peace and reconciliation, for the victory of justice and love over hatred and violence.” — Pope John Paul II, Appeal to IRA in Drogheda, September 1979

In contrast, here is the response of Islamic leaders to the Charlie Hebdo attacks.

Ok, that’s not really fair, some Imams have spoken about the bombings, saying, “This is what happens when you insult our Prophet you infidel swine.”

Christians do not kill people for not becoming Christians. Jews do not kill people for not professing Judaism. But groups like ISIS and Boko Haram have slaughtered thousands for precisely that reason. Christians also don’t kill people for leaving Christianity, but as Imam Anjem Choudary makes clear, that is precisely what Islam demands. Huge majorities of Muslims agree.

And yet, a thinking person must still resist the urge to throw blanket bigotry on all Mohammdans; which would be as mindlessly stupid as the progressive position of giving them all a pass. Among other reasons, most of us know or have known Muslims who weren’t sociopathic lunatics like Anjem Choudary or Louis Farrakhan.

It’s like we’re saying, “Islam, we want to like you. We really want to believe that hippie crap about Islam being ‘one of the world’s great religions.’ But you guys have to meet us halfway on this. You have to do something about the murderous lunatics who claim the mantle of Islam; or at least not piss and moan when non-Muslims do something about them. And if you want us to respect your culture, you have to respect ours. Leftists will never demand that of you, but people who aren’t hippie idiots will.”

Maybe “Is Islam responsible for the terrorist acts committed by adherents?” is the wrong question entirely. Maybe the right question is, “Can Islamics live peacefully alongside people of other religions?” or “How can Islamics learn to live peacefully alongside people of other religions?” That may be a more practical question to ask.

And the only people who can really answer it are the Islamics themselves.

Comments

  1. Lets have a video from a muslim “peace conference” settle whether people doing the same things moo ham mad did has widespread acceptance.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnMSCPHxLNA
    Remember they consider welfare to be jizya, so think of how bad it would be if they didn’t get jizya.

    Shorty can’t breath either, NAACP goes ape sh1t over noticing reality.
    http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2015/jan/16/restaurants-shorty-cant-breathe-either-evokes/

  2. I would like permission to re-publish this piece on my blog. If you don’t mind, please email and let me know.

    Other than that, thanks for telling it like it is, mate. I like the way you think and share your feed on Twitter. Keep on keeping on.

  3. The biggest problem is that these “radicals” are following the tenets of Islam. It’s all there in the Koran, Hadith and Sira. But since Muslims are one of the “oppressed” brown people, they can do no wrong against the “oppressive”, colonial West.

  4. I believe that Islam is Satan’s response to Jesus. The timing is right and subsequent wars of conquest spread the hate and death across the Middle East. People forget that the crusades were a response to Islam subjugating the “Holy Land”. The Bible tells us that Satan and his agents masquerade as heavenly beings to deceive humanity. They have been very successful. Jesus himself said there would come a time when His followers would be killed and it would be considered a favor to God.
    When you look at Islam from that point of view it all makes sense and there is no reason for discussion.

  6. So-called ”Moderate” Muslims contribute to jihad financially.
    In Islam it is mandatory to pay the zagat (zakat, alt spellings all over the place) to the Mosque.
    And the orders from Mohammad to his followers was that this money MUST be split up 8 equal ways.
    1/8th of it MUST go to fund jihadists!
    As it stands presently it is ”apostasy” under Sharia for a Muslim to not pay his fair share of 3% off the top as zagat to Islam.
    Let’s see if ”Moderate” Muslims show any willingness to change this arrangement before we start saying they are not ”for” jihad.
    Apostasy is oft times punished by death.

  7. it offends the rational part of our brain to write off an entire culture of people

    YM “an entire culture of non-white people” — white leftists are perfectly willing to write off “white-trash redneck culture” as retrograde, but balk at the possibility that large numbers of Muslims are for all practical purposes “backwards redneck trash” who happen to have darker skin and different fashion sense.

    Also, most leftists recognize that individuals can be “victims of Bad Parenting,” but the possibility that Bad Parenting can reach critical mass and become pandemic within a culture, thus making a Bad Culture overall, tends to elude them. Again, especially, when we’re talking about “brown” or non-European cultures — dysfunctionality is easier to admit if the people “look like us.”

  8. It’s okay not to like something. I don’t like Islam & find it to be loud, primitive & offensive. Their religion is incompatible with Western Civilization; therefore, if a muslim is pious it’s always going to be a problem.
    I can barely stand christians constantly pushing into political theater & daily governance; but there are institutionalized pushbacks to take care of that. Muslim “Americans”, constantly trying to influence our culture is intolerable.
    Our freedoms of expressions are a valuable tool to keep encroaching myths at bay.

  9. Jack Weatherford’s Ghengis Khan and the Making of the Modern World includes this incredible passage:

    Genghis Khan dismounted from his horse in order to walk into the great mosque, the only such building he is known to have ever entered in his life. Upon entering, he ordered that the scholars and clerics feed his horses, freeing them from further danger and placing them under his protection, as he did with almost all religious personnel who came under his control. Next, he summoned the 280 richest men of the city to the mosque. Despite his limited experience inside city walls, Genghis Khan still had a keen grasp of the working of human emotion and sentiment. Before the assembled men in the mosque, Genghis Khan took a few steps up the pulpit stairs, then turned to face the elite of Bukhara. Through interpreters, he lectured them sternly on the sins and misdeeds of their sultan and themselves. It was not the common people who were to blame for these failures; rather, “it is the great ones among you who have committed these sins. If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you.” He then gave each rich man into the control of one of his Mongol warriors, who would go with him and collect his treasure. He admonished his rich prisoners not to bother showing them the wealth above the ground; the Mongols could find that without assistance.

    (….)

    His attack on Bukhara ranked as a success, not merely because the people of that city surrendered, but because when word of the Mongol campaign reached the capital of Samarkand, that army surrendered as well. The sultan fled his kingdom, and the Mongol juggernaut pushed onward. Genghis Khan himself took the main part of the army across the mountains of Afghanistan and on to the Indus River, while another detachment circled around the Caspian Sea, through the Caucasus Mountains, and onto the plains of Russia. For precisely seven hundred years, from that day in 1220 until 1920, when the Soviets moved in, Genghis Khan’s descendants ruled as khans and emirs over the city of Bukhara in one of the longest family dynasties in history.

    The core “problem” with Islam is the insistence that the state must be in accord with the Qua’ran. Genghis Kahn made it clear that Islam was permitted to exist only by acceptance of temporal rule.

    Egypt, Jordon, Ataturk’s Turkey, Morocco, Assad’s Syria, Gadaffi’s Libya, Hussein’s Iraq, Musharraf’s Pakistan, Indonesia, etc. are all examples of keeping the Islamic chieftains separated from the rulers of the state.
    The Egyptian army under al-Sisi has no qualms about keeping a heavy hand exposed around radical mosques and meeting places. In his preparations for presidential elections in last May, al-Sisi declared: “There will be nothing called the Muslim Brotherhood during my tenure.”

    Radical Islam is Caliphate based. What Genghis Khan taught was that you don’t have to destroy Islamists, just the element that is dedicated to religious rule over all aspects of life.

    The “western world” is not compatible with the dictates of the Islamic caliphate. There is no “melting pot” solution possible and there is no possible equilibrium of western and caliphate values.

    We must define the enemy by the Islamic assumptions which it promotes. In that world, we would never consider trading five key Taliban leaders for the release of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.

    The point is that we know in general terms who the enemy is and where they are. Now we need to start pulling them out by their roots in the homeland and showing them no deference in the lands where they run wild. These are not sleeping dogs.

    In the film, Lone Survivor, the Navy SEALs were “victimized” by rules of engagement that were in no conceivable way proportionate to the realities of their own risk and the mission at hand. The Marquess of Queensbury type rules we apply to “protect” the civilians just don’t apply in warfare with terrorists. The stern lessons of Genghis Khan prevail. Think: Hiroshima and Nagasaki. (Israel is adept at identifying and destroying the core of radical infrastructure. In times past, we were good at it as well.)

    Europe just might be on the brink of an epiphany. 751 “no-go” zones in France might be “informing” the French that internal colonies of Shari’a led by radical Islamists is irreconcilable with the whole Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité motto.

    At present, we have a president who plays footsie with the Muslim Brotherhood, is basically hands off on radical Islam and yesterday, Obama said he would veto any plan by congress to issue additional sanctions on Iran. We are in for another two years of allowing radical Islam to metastasize.

  10. Bill Maher said the other day (paraphrasing) that when you have this many bad apples, you have to begin wondering about the orchard.

    Or, as Churchill wrote in 1899: No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.

    Sir Winston credits Christianity and science for keeping civilization safe… well, Europe’s “strong arms” are, well, limp and useless. If I recall, an English politician was arrested last year for speechcrime after quoting the above in a speech to voters.

  11. What all these questions boil down to is this question: Can the tenants of Islam be reconciled to any extend with the basic principles and values of Western Civilization?

    My answer: perhaps. I think all religions that incorporate some doctrine of sin- that acts are intrinsically good or evil- have adherents who see it as their prerogative to prevents others from sinning. This view crashes headlong into the Western principle that people should be able to do as they wish, so long as it does not harm others (how far this principle goes, and what qualifies as harm varies).

    Muslims must realize that, while the Quran may posit itself as the best guide to ordering society and personal behavior, most people in the West do not share this sentiment.

  13. I think you are not seeing clearly on this.

    All the questions you raise are unimportant. Some people are doing violent evil. They must be stopped.

    It doesn’t matter if this is real Islam, or fake Islam. Stop the evil doers. Who could object?

  14. It doesn’t matter if this is real Islam, or fake Islam. Stop the evil doers. Who could object?

    If we were to do this efficiently, then we would destroy all adherents of Islam knowing that in doing so, we would have killed potential evil-doers in the womb and cradle along as those standing and watching and those fighting.

    Religious genocide. The marker would be Islam. Would you object to that?

  15. Fundamentalist Muslim cleric Anjem Choudary keeps popping up on TV and in USA Today as a columnist. His words, I believe, are pretty darned direct:

    Contrary to popular misconception, Islam does not mean peace but rather means submission to the commands of Allah alone. Therefore, Muslims do not believe in the concept of freedom of expression, as their speech and actions are determined by divine revelation and not based on people’s desires.

    Although Muslims may not agree about the idea of freedom of expression, even non-Muslims who espouse it say it comes with responsibilities. In an increasingly unstable and insecure world, the potential consequences of insulting the Messenger Muhammad are known to Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

    Muslims consider the honor of the Prophet Muhammad to be dearer to them than that of their parents or even themselves. To defend it is considered to be an obligation upon them. The strict punishment if found guilty of this crime under sharia (Islamic law) is capital punishment implementable by an Islamic State. This is because the Messenger Muhammad said, “Whoever insults a Prophet kill him.”

    CAIR (The Council on American-Islamic Relations) has done a lousy job of making any attempt at challenging such depictions of the core of Islam from the likes of Anjem Choudary. I take that as tacit agreement with the cleric’s words on the part of CAIR.

    That leaves me with the understanding that Islam is a vengeful, conquering and enslaving religion divided among those who are warriors, those who go along to get along and those who cower.

    Apparently, the policy of the Western world is essentially to ignore the Islamic warriors and hope to bribe the rest of the Islamic people into settling for watered down Islam and passivity. It is a balmy sort of “this too shall pass” banal thinking that is undergirded by delusions of “hope and change.”

    Those who study militant Islam either from a military response perspective or to understand the core beliefs embedded in the religion, tactics and policies seem to be basically on the same footing concerning its general nature. They know that it militancy is inseparable from its generalized theology.

    To achieve a neighborly, benign Islam, everyone, including Islamists themselves must actively guard against the subjugation mandate which underlies the religion.